Loyalty
by Writings of Stardust
Summary: Set in the Lie a Little Better 'verse. Five times that McKenna showed that she had Neal's back, and one time that Neal returned the favor.
1. chapter 1

**I. Settling In**

 _Timeframe: Set between chapters two and three of Lie a Little Better._

If I ignored all of the parts where Neal was in my custody, then having a CI was nice. It was like having a probie, but one with different limitations within the division – and although Neal was undoubtedly young and vibrant, most probies were in their early twenties and some years his junior.

Neal had a very keen brain for detail. He picked up on it, whether it was visual, audio, sensorial, concrete, abstract, immediate, or indirect. If he was like some sort of charming, criminal, modern-day Sherlock, then I was undoubtedly Irene Adler. While I _could_ say that the reason for that was because of the power I held over him – like some sort of twisted version of a professional dominatrix – I admitted to myself that it was mostly because I was incredibly attracted to his intelligence. His body, too, for sure, but I admired his brain much more than I admired his ass.

 _Although…_

I shook my head firmly before I started thinking about specific, uh, aspects of my consultant that I probably never should've thought of in the first place. "Dazzle me," I said, blinking up at Neal through a yawn as he entered my office.

He set down a cup of coffee in front of me, making eye contact. He slowly started to stretch his lips into a handsome smile as he held his hands up docilely and retreated back into a chair, sinking down and crossing his ankles.

I glanced at the coffee, ascertaining that it was definitely what I thought it was, before looking back up to the stunning blues of his eyes. "Marry me," I promptly amended my previous sentence.

Neal laughed, covering his mouth with the side of his fist. "Derek said you were busy. It's not Italian roast, but…" He shrugged, his eyes alight with mirth. I considered the elegance of his hands and tried to decide whether a silver or a gold wedding band would look best.

"I forgot to take my phone off silent," I explained. "So I woke up late and didn't have time for breakfast _or_ coffee. Hence, unprecedented marriage proposal." I leaned back in my chair with as much comfort as I could obtain from a desk chair, holding the hot cup between my hands and by my chest. I could feel the heat radiating through to my breasts. "What do you need this time?"

"I think I found an inconsistency in the Turner statements," Neal offered, lowering his arm to the arm rest on the chair. "Mrs. Turner says that they bought the safe January before last, and that they set the code as their daughter's birthday. Her husband says they changed it every other week."

"Either they have a lot of daughters, or one of them was lying." Which brought us right back to my thoughts from earlier, in regards to his intellect being supremely appealing. _And one has to wonder how that kind of detail-oriented mind approaches a significant other._ I grimaced at myself. I was getting a little too lonely. "Tell you what," I suggested thoughtfully, "We probably have everything connected to those statements down in the archives. You should look and see if the daughter had anything to say about the robbery. She might've said something about the safe code."

"On my own?" Neal pointed to his chest.

"No, of course not," I sarcastically balked. "Thirty-two-year-old men aren't allowed to go anywhere without properly utilizing the buddy system." I gave him a very exasperated expression. He didn't seem quite so attractive when he was asking dumb questions. "But I swear to God, if you make me refer to either of our ages again, I'm going to tie you to your desk so you can't come bother me."

Neal shifted, frowning slightly. Neither of us were exactly pleased by the reminder of how old we were. I was mentally older than I was, but felt younger physically than my actual age, too; and yet, the medium number in between the two made me feel a little nauseous. I was less than a year younger than Neal.

He mumbled, "I'm not thirty," while he was standing up to leave.

"All the documents we have suggesting Neal Caffrey is an actual person say otherwise."

"I'm not," he insisted.

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever helps you sleep at night."

 _~~~ Settling In ~~~_

I checked the time on my computer again and sighed impatiently, tapping my foot on the carpet. Neal had been in the archives for a lot longer than he should've needed to find a few case-related statements. There was a lot down there, but it wasn't in complete disarray.

By now, I'd finished the coffee he'd brought me and had also finished responding to the email I'd been working on when he entered my office. I tilted the empty cup back and forth in my hand and revised my previous thoughts on how a CI was like a probie. They weren't really all that similar. Maybe if Neal were anyone else, they might have been, but Neal was too unique to be trusted not to be screwing with the data of my albeit limited experiences with CIs.

Probies didn't typically bring their bosses coffee, and their bosses didn't usually jokingly make decisions about wedding-related jewelry in response. I kind of hoped that was specific to Neal and myself. I liked the idea that our relationship was special. It made it feel a little more likely that he was being sincere if we weren't conforming to a previous norm.

Yawning and stretching, I put my computer to sleep and made to leave my office. Neal didn't really need the buddy system, did he? Still, it was taking him forever, and I wanted to finish that and sign off on his work before I started an entirely different case finalization of my own. It had never hurt anyone to take a walk through the building before, and maybe moving around would wake me up a little until the caffeine had a chance to do its job.

Archives, despite its name, wasn't locked away in the dank, decrepit cellar and only accessible via crankshaft. It was a brightly-lit, well-organized area managed largely by office workers rather than field agents, interns from undergrad programs, and the occasional probie or two. There wasn't anyone guarding the door on any given day, which made it easy to just walk inside far enough to hear the protests of a boy's voice and the calm, soothing replies from Neal's.

 _What have you gotten into now?_ I groaned to myself, already annoyed.

"I swear," Neal vowed to something I hadn't heard, crossing his finger over his heart in demonstration. "I have an ID badge. It has the seal on it."

"The FBI doesn't employ guys I see in the paper!" The boy's voice was higher than Neal's, and his tone was half panicked and a little squeaky every few syllables. I leaned on a shelf and watched, trying to get a feel for what was happening. The boy wore business casual clothing and seemed like he was fresh from school. He was holding a folder and keeping it behind his back, away from Neal.

"Excuse me," I said loudly, getting both of their attention. The kid had an ID badge clipped to the lapel of his button-up dress shirt with his photograph, name, and role – he was an intern. That explained why he hadn't known about the work-release deal. It was made public to as few people as possible. "Special Agent McKenna Anderson," I introduced myself smoothly, stepping forward and gently laying a hand on Neal's shoulder, as if to prove that my informant didn't bite. "This is my consultant. I asked him to collect a victim statement for me." I cocked my head politely. "I don't suppose you'd be able to help us find it?" Meaningfully, I dropped my eyes to the corner of the folder I could see poking out from behind his back.

"Let me see your badge!"

I rolled my eyes but took it from the inside pocket of my blazer. The kid couldn't be more than twenty or twenty-one, but he was skittish and jumpy, and recognizing Neal from when he broke out of prison only made him more nervous. He wasn't armed, but this was an unnecessarily tense situation that I wanted to diffuse.

"Here, okay?" I said, letting him see the photo ID that matched my face. "Like I said, FBI. And he's my consultant." I touched Neal's shoulder again, proving once more that he was harmless. "So now if you could please stop hiding files behind your back and panicking, it would be much appreciated."

The young adult gave me the file. He was very insistent that I be the one to take it, and he kept his eyes glued on Neal suspiciously throughout the transaction. I thanked him, trying not to sound too sarcastic, and gave my partner's elbow a tug.

We left the archives in a more subdued mood than we'd entered, mostly on Neal's part. I was no stranger to having to show my badge or my ID to get things, and I knew that bringing a conman into the FBI was going to have its rough spots as he was settling in and the other agents were getting used to having him around. Mostly, I was glad that this one had been resolved, and that I'd thought to check on him when I had.

Neal, for once, was short on words for his ever-running mouth. The elevator let us off on the right floor again before he had so much as said anything. He didn't hold himself defensively, but his quietness was, in itself, an indicator of his discomfort.

I debated with myself for a moment before I decided it was important enough to address. "Look," I started, but then sighed, realizing that what I'd been about to say – _forget about it_ – wasn't going to work this time. Neal was being treated like a pariah. That wasn't something that could be easily forgotten. "Okay, I get it, this sucks. And it's disconcerting and maybe a little insulting." I kept my voice down so that Neal could have a little bit of privacy. Letting anyone else know that the attitude had gotten to him would just make him feel vulnerable. "But you can't let that sort of thing get under your skin too badly, alright? It's not the first time, and I promise you that it won't be the last, but the only way there will ever _be_ a last time is if you be the bigger person and prove that you're not actually going to rob the interns blind."

Neal stood up with his back a little straighter and looked over my shoulder. Then, satisfied no one was eavesdropping, he lowered his eyes to me, chagrined and downcast. "I'm not a robber." I raised one eyebrow. Neal reached for my shoulder and touched my upper arm softly. "I mean it, Kenna. I've never committed robbery in my life."

"What do you call unlawfully taking what doesn't belong to you?" I prompted, crossing my arms with interest. _I would **love** to see how you're going to justify this._

He held his hands up. "I won't deny that, in a hypothetical situation, I might have deemed it necessary to commit theft. But theft and robbery aren't the same thing. I never scared, threatened, or forced anyone to do anything, no matter what it was I was taking from them."

I exhaled and let my arms fall. "Okay," I accepted, taking his word for it. There was a difference in the meaning of the terminologies. I suppose that theft is better than robbery. "But they don't know that, and they're not trusting enough to believe it just because you or I say so." I tried to make eye contact again. Neal had a real chance here to turn his life around and to be someone better – someone who could make his own decisions, someone who could be a reliable friend. "You have to stick it out and prove to them that you're not going to catch them alone with a stolen firearm. You can either try to build bridges with people other than me and my team, or you can be miserable here at the FBI, because it's not Derek's or Diana's or anyone else's job to make people like you. I won't be trying," I warned. "If you want friends, you have to make them. I'm not setting you up on playdates."

"No one wants to make friends with me," he complained. His complaints weren't whiny or pouty like they were when he wanted attention – he sounded a touch genuinely upset, and his expression was completely somber. "I'd think they confused me with Charles Manson if they didn't keep calling me Picasso."

I snorted and covered my mouth with my hand apologetically.

Neal glared, distressed. "It's not funny."

"It is, a little," I snickered. "Of course no one is bounding up to you to take you to lunch. That would be creepy, even if you weren't a convict. Real friendships start organically. Just be polite, and be courteous, and eventually someone will come to realize you're not the monster that hides in dark alleys. Alright?"

Neal looked very unconvinced, but he knew that I was done. I meant what I said. He was not a little boy in elementary school. If he wanted friendships, he needed to learn to make them himself. If he wanted to be accepted into the folds of federal agents, then he needed to prove that he wasn't going to recidivate at the first opportunity.

I knew what it was like to be the new person somewhere who didn't fit in. Like Neal, I had skillsets and thought processes that weren't the norm in a new environment. When I'd been a French girl in an Italian school, it had been hard to make friends. We spoke entirely different languages. Neal would just have to learn to speak like a fed, like I'd had to learn to speak like an Italian.

"Now," I added compassionately, hoping to pass it off as a nonchalant thought. "Derek, Katie, and I all want to see a movie this weekend, but they're going to share popcorn and she's gonna grab onto his hand and I'm going to be an annoyed third wheel, so if you'd like to go with us, you would be doing me a favor."

He scrutinized me very closely. Both of us knew who was doing a favor for whom.

"It's outside of your radius," I added teasingly.

Neal smiled slightly. It was just a small turn of his mouth and a lighter look in his eyes, but it was there, and it meant something. "What kind of diligent informant would I be if I didn't take the opportunity to refamiliarize with the city?" He asked rhetorically.


	2. Human Decency

**II. Human Decency**

 _Timeframe: Set between chapters four and five of Lie a Little Better._

I walked into the WCCD with Neal at my side, his arms to himself due to my mood. I was tired, I was sore, and I was dying to rip my verbal teeth into someone's throat. I'd been informed by the US Marshals' office of some news that made me very unhappy, and for once, it had nothing to do with Neal. Someone whom I had arrested on a homicide charge several years ago was finally acquitted after his trial, despite the evidence I'd collected. I seethed at the unfairness. I couldn't have _all_ wins, but it sure was infuriating when someone I knew to be guilty got away with it.

"What are we doing today?" Neal asked, his voice low and suitably non-competitive or provocative. While he wasn't needling me for any sort of reaction, I pointed to his desk, eyes locked on the door of my office up on the mezzanine. Neal followed my finger to his work station. "We're not working together?" He sounded disappointed.

"I have to collect some files and see if there's anything I can do to combat the ruling," I answered tightly. "Blue-collar's not your expertise. Tell you what, though, if you can be productive this morning, then you can take Derek on your lunch break."

I made the promise distractedly, having other things on my mind. Derek had been with me when I'd caught the acquitted suspect, and once I told him, I knew he'd be just as furious. A break halfway through the day would be good for him, and some time apart from Neal was probably good for both of us sometimes. Because Derek was an agent, he was qualified to take Neal outside of his two-mile confines, so Neal wasn't missing out on anything.

After steering Neal to his desk, he pulled out the chair and I made to move until I heard something like a watery sloshing noise. "What was that?" I asked my consultant suspiciously, putting my hands on my hips.

Neal was looking down at the carpet and made an annoyed and semi-interested sound. He bent down and picked up a stainless-steel bowl with a black polyurethane seal around the rim. It was a dog bowl, filled halfway up with tap water, and positioned right beside the wheels of his chair.

I clenched my fists. Neal moved the pet dish onto the edge of his desk with distaste, his eyes narrowed and offended. His jaw was tense. I couldn't say I blamed him – there was absolutely no call for that sort of prank, and I was _not_ going to be putting up with any such antics even on a good day.

"Alright," I raised my voice to a shout and projected across the bullpen. Neal, startled, took a step away. Then he saw that I wasn't pissed off at _him_ and he clasped his hands behind his back. "Who the fuck is responsible for the dog bowl at my informant's desk?"

Several people snickered before they could help themselves. Neal's shoulders raised defensively on reflex. It seriously agitated me that they thought it was funny to treat another person this way, regardless of the tracking anklet. Neal was not my _pet_. He had served his first prison term in prison, and he was serving his second under my very watchful supervision. This time, he was out of bars, but he was being forced to put his skills to the use of the government. I didn't get why so many people objected to that. Would they prefer that their taxes go toward letting Neal and the criminals like him lay in their bunks all day doing absolutely nothing worthwhile?

No one was taking responsibility for the tasteless joke. I shifted and bit the inside of my cheek, raking my eyes over the corners of the room for anyone slinking out of sight.

I slammed my hand on the edge of Neal's desk. "Next time someone treats another human being – whether they're Caffrey, myself, or any other individual within this division – like a _dog,_ they'll find their casework being handed to their target while they go work in archives. I will not tolerate this kind of conduct. We're an agency of professional crime-fighters. Harassment is a crime."

Though my plans for the day hadn't changed, I hesitated to leave Neal on his own. Would it be better if I stuck with him so his prankster didn't get a chance to swing by again? Neal was an easy mark for pathetic tricks, since such a small number actually wanted him here to begin with. I guessed that a fraction of the division wouldn't turn in the one who did it, if only because they agreed with the idea.

In just a few seconds, I dismissed the option. If I started puppy-guarding my informant, then it would just make him look weak – like he needed his handler to protect him. He could handle himself. I wasn't as concerned about him as I was aggravated by the ethics of the person who'd given him the water bowl. My office overlooked the front of the bullpen if I pulled up the blinds. I could discreetly keep an eye on Neal from there without anyone having to notice that I was being more attentive.

I picked up the bowl and made sure to make myself look extra angry. If I marched through the WCCD with a dog bowl just so I could dump out the water in the kitchenette sink, then the person who'd done it would see how very displeased I was, and hopefully it would scare them.

Neal sat down slowly in his chair. "Well, now _no one's_ going to admit to doing it," he appealed to me very quietly. I sent him a dull, unimpressed stare and he held both of his arms up innocently. "Just a thought," he offered.

 _~~~ Human Decency ~~~_

When I was a little girl, I had begged and begged my parents to let me have a pet. I didn't care if it was a cat, a dog, a bird, a ferret, a rabbit, or even a guinea pig – I just wanted something small and soft and friendly that I could take care of. I wanted a living thing to be responsible for.

My mother hated animals, but my father made me a deal. He said that if I took care of the pet, and paid for all of its expenses, then I could have a cat – but first, I had to prove that I would behave once I had it. He made me out like a terrible brat. I don't think I was too awful. I whined and I complained and I rebelled, and sometimes I did the opposite of what I was told, but most of my "bad" behavior had been acts committed to get my neglectful parents' attention. Anyway, I got to have a cat. It was small and soft and friendly, and its bright pink nose and dainty little paws were my favorite things about it, right after its perky, fuzzy little ears. I was able to keep the kitten for just long enough to love it, and then it was taken away from me as soon as we had to switch to a different extended-stay hotel, where pets weren't allowed.

I'd named the kitten _Espoir._ (This had been before all the childish optimism had been crushed out of me.) I sobbed for days. I cried in my bed until my head ached and my eyes burned painfully. I never asked for a pet again, because I knew that even if I were granted one, I wouldn't be allowed to keep it.

Once I was an adult, I was free to get a pet. I liked the idea of taking care of something. I liked being trusted to protect and to provide. It felt good to protect and to provide, I just didn't have anything to protect and provide _for._ But college dorms weren't good environments for animals, no matter how domesticated they were, and neither were apartments; and although Katie will pet dogs she sees in passing, she hates how they shed their fur everywhere, and most of the hypoallergenic breeds annoy her with their high barks, so she refused to let me have one. As such, the next living thing I was trusted to protect and provide for was a fully-grown man fresh out of prison. Not _quite_ a wet-nosed, dainty-pawed kitten.

Neal was… not what I'd had in mind when I'd been craving something to take care of.

Having Neal's custody wasn't like having a pet at all, except for that I had to supervise him carefully sometimes. At least I was never worried that he'd scratch up the furniture or die from eating too much chocolate. It wasn't like having a child, either. Neal didn't need guidance to learn about the world, because he'd already claimed it as his own. He was seasoned and experienced and knew exactly how to make people bend to what he wanted without making them realize that they were being bent.

Having custody over an adult… it was weird. I spent a notable while trying to find the perfect balance between being his handler and being his partner. For instance, was it appropriate to make sure he had enough to eat? He wasn't given a very large stipend for a month of life expenses in New York, but at the same time, he was an _adult._ If he didn't have enough food, he should be responsible enough to ask for help himself without me hovering. Was my desire to defend him from other FBI agents caused by how much I'd wanted something to protect, or was it because I prided myself on loyalty to my partners?

Maybe I just desperately wanted to prove that I could be a provider because I was so eager to convince my soulmate that I was someone they could be proud of. That sounded like the kind of sad, uncomfortable reasoning that might stem from a childhood like mine. The idea that my soulmate would ever meet Neal or be aware of my situation with the CI, however, seemed a little farfetched.

The most important things for me to remember while I was his handler had boiled down to two parts: one, I have to think of him firstly as a coworker, not a ward. Otherwise I can't tell when I'm being strange or not, because Neal _is_ an adult, and he knows to ask for help if he needs it. Secondly, I still have to be careful with how many freedoms he has, because too many makes me look like I'm not actually handling him at all, and the bureau wouldn't like that. Too _few,_ and I start feeling like a prison guard and Neal starts feeling like a prisoner.

Someone had clearly forgotten that Neal was, in fact, _not_ a pet, and I wished they'd been privy to the learning process I'd had to go through to come to those two conclusions. Neal may have stolen some expensive things, but it wasn't like he pillaged and plundered. I believed he was… maybe not a great guy, but he was a stand-up gentleman, which I had to respect, and I wouldn't go as far as to call him bad.

The question then became how to handle _that._

People see what they want to see, even after leaving middle school. It's still true that if you deny a rumor, it generally just gains strength. I had no idea how to remedy the situation of the dog jokes and paraphernalia being found around the office with increasing frequency, and it was starting to unnerve me. How do you punish an entire office?

The dog bowl was just the first of many issues that came up.

Neal tried to grin and bear it, turning the other cheek, but each time he kept something away from me, Derek or Diana or Cruz or someone else who knew better than to think people were kept pets would come inform me with concern that there were more harassment incidences. When Ruiz came up from violent crime, he called Neal 'Scooby,' and Neal just deadpanned, " _ruh-roh!"_ Ruiz scowled and left, upset that he couldn't hurt the conman's feelings. I had to hear about this from Spencer and Diana.

The final straw came when I was helping Neal out with his computer.

"What did you _do_ to it?" I complained, dropping down to my knees and crawling under the desk. The damn thing just refused to turn on.

Neal pulled his chair out of the way so I didn't bump my elbows while I worked on restarting the system and making sure all of the wires were plugged in. "I didn't do anything," he defended himself innocently. "I haven't been in all weekend."

"Yeah, sure," I grumbled, although I knew he hadn't. I just didn't like working IT. We had actual IT people whose jobs were to handle situations like these, but if it turned out to just be something like an unplugged cable, I didn't want to be the one explaining why a highly-qualified agent and her world-renowned partner couldn't fix it on their own. I rocked back on my haunches and looked up from under the desk. "If I'm fixing your computer, you can go get me some coffee."

"Macchiato, caramel, extra shot?" Neal guessed, leaning on the back of his chair.

I hummed. "Double shot," I corrected after a second.

Though I was focused on the machine again, Neal sighed. I could envision him raising his eyebrows at my back. "You're going to increase your risk of heart attacks."

"You're going to increase your risk of crawling on the floor to fix your own damn computer if you don't stop criticizing me," I threatened, entirely serious. I was tired, the carpet was already making my knees sore, and I hated fussing with cords.

Neal took his wallet, his ID, and his jacket from his desk before leaving for the coffee place near the plaza. I paused to yawn widely and was unplugging and restarting the connections to the desktop monitor by the time he left, waiting impatiently for the monitor or the console (or both) to start glowing with the white start-up indicator.

After a few more cords were tried and reset, I pressed down on the grey-blue button in the top left again. I shifted my weight uncomfortably in the small space under the table and almost sighed in relief when the light turned on.

My relief was short-lived. "Caffrey," a woman's scornful voice called, "Not that we expect civility from a thief, but you'd think Anderson wouldn't give you any chances if you were too dumb to learn how to use a chair. I guess you really _are_ a dog."

I narrowed my eyes at the computer, tightening my hand around the cord. _She thinks I'm him._ From the direction of her voice, she was standing in front of the desk, which meant all she could see of the person underneath it were shoes and maybe part of my blazer. _Well, that just won't do._

Not saying a word, I stretched out my legs, backed out of the small space, and sat up on my knees, leaning back to sit on my heels. I crossed my arms and stared up flatly at the light-skinned Asian agent, cocking my head.

"Please continue," I invited, voice obviously pissed off. "By all means, continue to direct verbal abuse meant for my partner at _your_ section chief." I oversaw the white-collar division as an entirety, though I had a specific team for myself; it was why I had so much pull on the twenty-first floor of the building.

Her face had gone paler. I secretly delighted in it – I'd never had any patience for bullies. "Agent Anderson," she greeted nervously, clasping her hands together and wringing her fingers. "I'm so sorry. I thought you were-"

"Caffrey," I interrupted dryly. "Yeah, I kind of got that." I pushed myself up to my feet, standing tall and rolling my shoulders back. She was taller than me, especially in her heeled shoes, but her slightly-parted lips and wide eyes told me she wasn't at all comforted by our height difference. "I'm going to make you into an example, since you think it's alright to so blatantly bully our coworkers."

Before she could ask me what I meant by that, I had raised a hand to my mouth and forced out a shrill whistle. I was glad Neal wasn't there. The attention of the other agents in the division came reluctantly and with irritation – Diana was one of the most interested, but I noted that Dalton rubbed his forehead and glared at me.

I cleared my throat. "There have been a lot of gags running around this office about my consultant being an animal. They're going to _stop._ " I sent a loathsome glower at the Asian agent before me. "We are _adults._ If you're so pathetic that you have to bully someone just to feel good about yourself, you can hand your resignation in to myself or to Director Hughes. I don't want to associate myself with someone who never grew out of their eight-year-old playground mentality." I snapped my fingers and pointed at Neal's chair. "Sit."

The lady dropped her head and hurried around the desk, depositing herself in the seat before I had to ask twice. She sat at the very end, anxiously trembling, and she didn't realize what I was doing until I issued the next command.

"Stay."

Her head snapped up, petrified and humiliated.

"You're going to sit there, and you're going to _stay_ there, until Neal comes back from his coffee run." I decreed, crossing my arms again and smiling saccharinely. "Then, you're going to apologize to him personally while I watch. If you can't do it right the first time, you'll do it again. And again. There's nothing I hate more than a bully." I lifted my gaze from her stricken and pallid face before looking briefly around the bullpen. "That's all, folks. Just know that the next time I hear or see anything about anyone in this division being harassed, my consultant included, there will be consequences. If you can't act with human decency, then maybe you don't deserve to be treated like humans."


	3. Faithfulness

**III. Faithfulness**

 _Timeframe: Set between chapters eight and nine of Lie a Little Better._

Neal was an _amazing_ cuddle buddy. He was the type of partner who didn't want to just get up, clean up, and part ways after sex, and it made for better cuddles than I had had in years. His skin was so soft and warm, and although I've never particularly been one to care about how muscly or strong my lover is, it was comforting to feel the firmness and strength in his arms when Neal held me.

My breathing was coming a little heavily when Neal pulled me down to lay with him. I let him manhandle me into a position at his side. The artist laid his arm down on my pillow so I could lay my head on his bicep. I curled in towards him a bit, put my leg out over his, and draped my arm across his chest.

"Sleeping here tonight?" Neal queried lazily, stroking my forearm with soft fingers. The way he asked made it sound like it was an offer.

I let out a long, content sigh. "Sure." After how close he had come to being shot today, I didn't feel like leaving him alone. Maybe it was my protectiveness, or maybe I was already too attached. Either way, it wasn't just our shared soulmark that made me want to stay with him.

It felt good to snuggle up with him. Neal was someone I knew I was safe with, and I felt I owed it to both of us to enjoy the luxury of doing it right this time instead of running out and abandoning him in bed. The thief was a romantic; he didn't strike me as the type to do hook-ups. I wish I hadn't panicked when I'd left. He deserved better than that.

We laid there in silence for a few minutes while our bodies cooled off and our breathing became even and controlled. I moved more onto my side, pressing up tighter to his torso and laying my cheek on his shoulder. Neal shifted his arm accordingly so he was holding me, his hand resting possessively on the feminine roundness of my hip.

 _Mine._ It was really beginning to sink in. I had found my soulmate. My soulmate was here, with me, and he was gentle, and patient, and kind. Here was my very own person to love and cherish, just like I had dreamed about. When I was a kid, I would pull the blankets up to my face and lay on my side, cuddling a big pillow, and I'd shut my eyes and pretend that it was a person to hold. I'd been a lonely child. I'd _really_ wanted my soulmate.

It was a bittersweet reveal at the same time. Even now, while we held each other intimately, there was a huge, invisible barrier in place. My soulmate wasn't _just_ my soulmate. In actuality, he was my confidential informant, my criminal consultant, and the felon I was offering supervised, limited freedom to. It would be easy to make those issues go away, but doing so would either place him back in prison or with another handler who might (would most likely) put him back in prison.

It was a painful choice to make, but at the same time, it didn't really feel like a choice at all. It was my idealistic wish for my soulmate, my special one, to be at my side as a lover and a partner and an equal versus the reality that the world's a dangerous place, and he's safer with me looking over his shoulder in a way that I can't do if I transfer his custody. For the next four years, until the threat of being booted back to prison isn't looming over his pretty head, keeping him safe has to be my first priority. Sacrificing what I wanted was the best way to ensure that. Protecting others had been put before my happiness before; why would it be any different with my soulmate?

Soulmate or not, I couldn't address Neal as such for a long time to come, if ever. Although I knew that Neal would love to know who I am, I couldn't help but shy away from the idea of telling him just on the principle that he might think of me differently. I see soulmates as suggestions; I'm free to walk away if the one I'm given doesn't work out for me. It would hurt, but I would rather do it than stay with someone toxic, and even abusers have soulmates. Neal views soulmates as gifts from fate, and he's too romantic and lovestruck with the idea to really connect the dots between "everyone has a soulmate" and "some people are bad". I want Neal to want me the way I wanted him _before_ I knew that I'm supposed to have every right to feel the way I do. If I told him, then not only might he jeopardize his own safety for the same reasons I'm a little tempted, but I would never know if it could have happened organically.

 _Mine…_ I thought again, and felt my heart sink a little while I traced my fingers lightly over his chest. _But not really._ The part of me that was so lonely, that had so much love to give and no one to give it to, wanted to cry and pitch a fit, but what good would that do? Protecting my friends came first. Neal was my friend, and my soulmate, and maybe someone I could come to love a little bit, but that scared me and I didn't want to think about it.

How could anyone ever feel safe loving a conman?

No. For _so many reasons,_ some complicated and some just narrowing down to pain and fear, it was best if Neal didn't know. It was best if this friendship _stayed_ a friendship, and the sex stayed _just_ sex. ( _Great_ sex, at that.)

While looking across his chest to my hand, I straightened and splayed my fingers, laying my hand across his beautiful, heated flesh and forcing myself to stop idly touching. _Not mine._ In spite of everything, I couldn't afford to start thinking like he was. If I couldn't call him my soulmate, I couldn't call him _mine,_ not in the sense of people who give themselves to each other when they know they're loved and cherished.

This was going to hurt.

"We should stop doing this," I said aloud, closing my eyes. It was going to suck to go back to being alone and sexually frustrated, and I'd miss having a warm body next to me in bed on occasion, but with all the risks of being caught, and all the dangers of letting this go too far and forgetting what I had chosen to give up, ending it was the sane decision.

I didn't expect Neal to be happy about it – I knew he got a great time out of it. I also didn't expect him to try to change my mind, because badgering someone into sex didn't seem like something he would do, and I was proud to be able to say that. Except he didn't do _anything_ , and that was somehow worse than either of the two, and my heart clenched and my throat felt dry. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I'd done it badly. Maybe I'd hurt his feelings, or he felt used, or he was angry, or-

He snored softly. I relaxed so quickly that it kind of hurt to let go of the tension in my shoulders.

"Or maybe not," I added, quieter, mindful to let him sleep.

 _~~~ Faithfulness ~~~_

Too often, it was easy to become distracted while I was supposed to be working. All it took was one look up from my desk, and my eyes would wander to look out through the window, where Neal was sitting in the open floor plan at his desk, working on something or maybe procrastinating on paperwork.

 _Mine,_ a possessive part of me crowed, and a disheartened part squashed it down as soon as the feeling had come up. _No, not mine._

I picked up my phone so I wouldn't be staring longingly out at my consultant like a stupid, lovestruck fool. I opened up a new text message. I'd gone drinking the night before, just because Kate wanted to watch possibly the dumbest cartoon ever and I wasn't in the mood to listen to it, but I also didn't really want to be alone, so I sat at the counter and nursed a martini for an hour.

I met someone. Someone who liked me and gave me their number. There's nothing wrong with flirting, I reminded myself. Or dating. _Neal's not mine. I'm not his. I wouldn't be doing anything wrong._ They liked the same drink as me, same music. He invited me to dance, but I wasn't feeling it and politely turned down the offer. Now, I considered, maybe having someone I _could_ call mine would help with this issue where I felt more for my soulmate than I could let myself feel. He was nice, he was… maybe not as classy, but he was fun. And he wasn't my CI, and he wasn't an ex-con.

 _I get off work at 5:00. Want to meet?_ I looked over my text and then realized I couldn't meet right after work. I had to give Neal a ride home, like we had already worked out for Mondays, and usually we get dinner on our way, too, so then there would be no point in meeting a new person for dinner.

I deleted everything and rewrote it. _Still want to meet? I'm free at 8:00._

My finger hovered over the button to send it, but I couldn't quite bring myself to press it. I should've had every right to go on a date, but I'd never wanted to waste my time dating, and now… Now, I tried to compare how I felt about looking forward to seeing Neal with how excited I was to see this new potential lover, and there wasn't even a comparison.

I dropped my phone and groaned loudly in frustration. _Why can't I just not care about my soulmate?! He's not mine to have! He's not within reach!_ This stupid devotion was going to drive me insane, and if I kept favoring an impossible relationship over a potential one, then I was just always going to feel the lonely, unfulfilled pit in my stomach.

 _"_ _I_ _ **am**_ _a romantic. I think soulmates are incredible. I want mine. I don't know if they'll want me, but I want mine."_

Neal's words from our very first case together came back to me. He didn't care who his soulmate turned out to be. He just wanted the chance with them. If I went and got into a relationship with someone else – possibly a serious relationship – then if-slash-when Neal learned that I was the soulmate he'd been waiting for, he might not _ever_ have the chance for the full potential of his relationship with his special one, because I'd be committed to someone else without having known what could've been.

It was a dumb game of what-ifs and possibilities that were impossible to foresee. At the same time, it made me feel like I was the lowest of the low to entertain the idea of giving up on Neal before giving him a real chance at what he wanted. If being his soulmate meant I protected him above my own wants, it also meant that I valued _his_ wants, and cheating him out of his hopes just because I was lonely, or because I didn't want to have to handle my own feelings about him and our connection, would be repulsive.

"I can't even move on with my life now because of faithfulness to you, and you don't even know it," I whispered to Neal, staring at him through the window while he typed at his computer, looking utterly bored but determined to finish before lunch.

I deleted the entire unsent text and erased the contact information from my cell.


	4. Karma

**IV. Karma**

 _Timeframe: Set between chapters ten and eleven of Lie a Little Better._

At the end of a briefing meeting, Diana walked right up to Neal's chair and put her hand out. Neal was leaning back, his feet up on the empty chair next to him, and he smiled at her handsomely.

"Give it, Caffrey," my probie demanded, not screwing around.

Derek and I shared a look while the agents we supervised in the division filtered out of the room. Derek tried to hide his smile behind his hands as he closed his computer, then by keeping his head down as he packed his laptop away.

Neal brought out his most innocent expression and sat upright, moving his feet to the floor. "What do you think I have?" He asked Diana in expertly-feigned confusion, folding his arms on the table.

"You took my phone charger." She accused flatly. "I'd like it back." Neal tilted his head, surveying her thoughtfully with a playful quirk of his lips. She was not amused. At least he wasn't still pretending he had no idea what she wanted. "So either you give me my phone charger, or I hold you upside down until your phone falls out of your pockets and I go home with it."

Laughing, Neal stood up and reached into his back pocket. He gave Diana back her black charging cord, twisted up and neatly coiled with a zip tie. Diana pocketed it, giving Neal a slight, smug smile, and shooting Derek a cocky grin.

"I told you," she said to my brother, sticking her tongue out at him on her way out the door.

I turned my eyes back to my consultant. "You're lucky she likes you," I commented.

He sighed and stretched. "That's not the impression I get."

"Trust me," I snorted. "If she didn't like you, you wouldn't have had an either/or threat. She'd have shaken out your pockets and taken her charger _and_ your phone." I pulled on my jacket. "I'm heading out. Do you want a ride to June's or would you rather walk?" Neal could technically stay late, but then he would have to go straight home once he didn't have an FBI escort. It meant he couldn't take the detours necessary to get to the subway station.

"These shoes are new," Neal told me, looking indignant.

I stared at him blankly.

His shoulders fell. "I'll go with you," he answered. "I don't want scuff marks on these."

"Payment?" I prompted, holding out my hand to him like Diana had. With a weary, put-upon huff, Neal produced my billfold – from his front pockets this time – and dropped it into my open palm. I took it back with a smirk. "Sorry, Neal. You'd have better luck watching us scramble if we didn't already know your history of mischief-making."

He shrugged good-naturedly and held the door for me. "I still get you sometimes."

"No, you still get _Derek_ sometimes, and that's only because he thinks that if he pisses you off by accusing you of taking something when you didn't, you'll start actually taking things."

He grinned. "It still counts."

"Whatever." I looked around the bullpen. It was gradually emptying out. There was a probationary agent hanging out around the front doors. He had blond hair and blue eyes, and his jacket looked a little worn. He had been in the debriefing, but I couldn't remember who he was working under. "Hey," I called to him. "What's your name?"

He looked up suddenly after tapping on his phone. When he saw me, he stood a little straighter, and he didn't so much as glance to Neal. "Smith, ma'am."

"Agent," I corrected him. "Do I _look_ like someone's mother?" I teased with a straight face. The man chuckled nervously. I decided he probably hadn't been employed long enough to get used to interacting with higher-ranking agents and cut him some slack. "Go home soon," I advised. "You don't get brownie points with supervising agents by being late, no matter how much you get done after hours. Wait until you've got your own probie to screw up your sleep schedule."

He smiled at me like a boy scout and held his back awkwardly. I didn't comment – it would probably just embarrass him if I did, so I pretended not to see. "Yes, Agent Anderson."

I decided to just walk by him and let it pass. He wasn't actually a kid. It might seem cold, but even new recruits can't learn how to be agents if the senior staff hold their hands all the time. He was an adult, so he could choose his own bedtime.

"Come on, Neal," I said over my shoulder, pushing open the doors to the division and holding it for my consultant. "Let's get you back to June's before your fancy shoes start to gather dust."

"Kenna," Neal said imperiously, letting a hand fall to my back habitually while he walked me to the elevators. "It is not a crime to care about my clothes and shoes. How I look matters. First impressions are important."

"You're right, it's not a crime," I agreed with a small smirk tugging at my mouth. The elevator dinged. "It's just metrosexuality."

I felt his eyes on the back of my head. "Really? That's where we're at now?" He asked, clucking his tongue in disapproval.

"Don't worry, human peacock." I glanced down the hall and into the bullpen. The doors were closed and I couldn't see the probie, so I assumed we were out of earshot. "I think it's cute."

 _~~~ Karma ~~~_

The morning after the briefing, we were getting ready to go do some footwork recon on our suspect. We thought that we might have an in if we played it right, but we wanted to be sure about the crowd before we tried inserting any feds into the closed social circle.

A knock on my door made me look up. Neal was leaning into my office, a frown on his face and his fedora crooked, casting a shadow over his eyes. "Hey, Kenna, have you seen my watch?"

"Um…" I stood up straight and blinked, forgetting that I was holding a laptop and had intended to do something with it. _What the…? What am I, cleaning staff?_ "No, because I'm generally confident that you can dress and accessorize on your own…? Wait, the one with the recorder?" Neal nodded, looking particularly annoyed that I had missed the point for a moment there. "Didn't you say you were keeping it in your desk so the FBI couldn't accuse you of taking our toys home?"

Neal nodded but then corrected me. "I said that I was leaving it here because I didn't want to risk bureau equipment coming to harm."

"Same difference," I waved it off. Neal didn't feel very strongly about bureau equipment, no matter what it was, but it sounded better than petulance on an official record. "Is it not there?"

His shoulders fell. Blue eyes stared at me with disappointment. "If it were there, why would I be asking?"

"Maybe it's a mind game."

Neal narrowed his eyes at me for a long moment. I started clearing off my desk and unplugging my phone to take it with me while we were out. "Don't go into comedy," he finally instructed flatly before leaving quickly, presumably on the hunt for the missing timepiece.

I dawdled and tried to kill time to give him a longer window to find it, but when I couldn't justify standing around any longer, I recruited him to be my field partner, as per usual, and we left. Neal's wrists were both bare of any watches, and I sent a message to the tech team to get a new one sent to my office.

This wasn't one of those cases where there turned out to be a drug cartel or an assassination attempt involved, to my disappointment. We got to talk to one of the coleaders of the little would-be criminals, but I could tell within the first ten minutes of playing billiards at the country club they frequented that not only did they suck at pool, but they sucked at masterminding thefts, too. We left – Neal almost a hundred dollars richer after placing a bet on the game – with distaste and irritation aplenty.

"These are not worth our time." Neal flipped his hat back on while we strode side by side on the sidewalk. "Trust me, Kenna, they're not getting anywhere. Not only have they completely forgotten to account for the security cameras covering the outside of the museum vault, but I doubt they even know that the microprinting exists."

"I agree, it's an easy case, but Hughes has a friend on the board of curators. He promised his best would personally ensure the gallery had an uneventful opening night, and if we pass it off to Cruz or Hallowell, then he'll probably put us _both_ in Riker's." I commiserated and touched his elbow. "Let's just get back to work now and we can take off early tonight. The op warrant should come through by morning and we'll surveil from the inside tomorrow evening."

"We should grab dinner!" He suggested brightly.

"Only if you're paying."

"That's cold. You have a much larger salary."

"I also have to pay for all of my living expenses. June lets you get off easy."

"Sh!" Neal looked over his shoulder and hushed his voice. "Don't let anyone else know. Diana already threatened to break my legs if she thought I was doing any funny business to keep my suite."

I giggled. "I thought she was going to break your arms?"

"No, that was if I ever tried to con her," Neal cleared up.

"So what's left to break? Skull? Spirit? Ribs? Maybe some more delicate parts?"

Neal scowled, but I thought the scowl contained a little bit of nervousness. "So far she's only also threatened my hands and my spine. Let's not give her any more ideas on how best to torture your informants, alright?"

When we got back to the bullpen, we found that the tech team had already gotten us a new golden wristwatch for Neal, with an audio transmitter built in underneath the face. Derek brought it to us as soon as we entered and I fastened it to Neal's wrist for him. He solemnly admired it while a small collection of agents applauded the small scene.

Not five minutes later, the probie from the night before came up to us and interrupted Neal in the middle of a sentence. "Agent Anderson," he said, his hair messy and tie askew.

I bit the inside of my cheek. "I'll be with you in a moment." I canted my head at Neal for him to continue.

The blond didn't give him the chance. "It's important," he insisted.

"And for all you know, so is the discussion I'm trying to have with my CI about an active investigation involving a gallery heist and a known strongman." I rebuked firmly. "If you had just waited patiently, then he would probably be done speaking already. Neal, go on."

Both the recruit and myself turned to Neal expectantly. The blue-eyed con opened his mouth, but thought better of it and waved passively at the man next to me. "You know, I think I've conveyed the general idea," Neal excused himself uncomfortably, sending me an apologetic glance as he went to his desk.

I sighed and raked a hand through my hair. He still did that sometimes, avoiding hostile agents. I wished he'd stand his ground instead of backing down. The people who needed to learn to respect him as a coworker were never going to start if he didn't start showing that he had a backbone.

"What do you want?" I demanded shortly, turning to the recruit.

"Cameron," he supplied me with his name, assuming I had been prompting for it. I let no sign of acknowledgment or recognition show on my face, and he squirmed around a little bit before he got on with it. "I just wanted to return this." He took a hand out of his pocket and showed me a golden watch, identical to the one I'd just placed on Neal. "I found it in the men's room yesterday. I'd have given it to you straight away, but I didn't know until you got the new one that it was case equipment."

I took the watch and turned it over a full time. It was definitely the kind that the tech labs made. They were modeled after the most generic wristwatches they could base them off of, then polished to look extra shiny and expensive to fit with Neal's typical undercover aliases.

"Thanks for giving it back," I said to him uncertainly. _In the bathroom?_ That was weird. Sure, Neal was the type to take care of his things meticulously, so it was plausible that he'd taken a watch off to wash his hands, but leaving it there was a kind of forgetfulness that just didn't apply to my friend. Still, everyone had their off days. "But in the future, you should deliver lost things to the people who lost them. I promise, Caffrey doesn't bite."

 _~~~ Karma ~~~_

Although there were no more weird accounts of finding things where they shouldn't be, there was a noticeable increase to Neal's bad luck with losing things over the next couple of days. They weren't important things, really, but they were still things he noticed. The first time, when we'd come in on the morning of the gallery opening, he complained to me that one of his pencils was missing, a special one for drawing that he'd ordered online. I told him he'd probably left it home by mistake, and though he was clearly unconvinced, he agreed.

After we brought in all three of the attempted thieves, I went to inform Hughes that it was all taken care of. When I left, Neal found me and told me that he was now missing his sketchbook. I sighed and decided that was harder to write off. Neal prized his sketchbook and thought it to be a very personal object, so he wouldn't misplace it, especially not in the middle of the FBI – he had drawings in there that were modeled off of me, Katie, and other agents. Most of them were fine for viewing, but it wasn't the kind of content he'd want people to know he sat and sketched.

The third thing was the very next day. Neal, looking irate, came into my office without knocking to voice his issues with the number of things going missing from his desk as his phone charger was added to the list.

The phone charger rang a bell. It was awfully soon after he'd playfully swiped Diana's for his favorite workplace game. He thought of that, too, and he had already asked her, but Diana swore she had nothing to do with his missing belongings, and then bluntly expressed that unless it was covered in glitter, she wouldn't know the difference between a normal pencil and an artist's special order.

Neal wasn't the kind of person who lost things. Conmen didn't get very far if they were careless, and losing so many items in such a small time frame was weird, no matter who it was. I didn't say anything to Neal, but I started to get a worrisome feeling that maybe he wasn't actually _losing_ anything.

To test my theory, I drove Neal home for the night and promised him I'd ask Derek and Diana to pick up any untitled books they saw and put them in my office. My artist was unappeased. The entire car ride had been spent mostly in silence. He was more distressed by the missing book than I had anticipated, and it had been affecting his behavior ever since it vanished.

Once he was safe at home, I doubled back to Federal Plaza and made a quick trip back up to the offices. Most of the mysterious disappearances seemed to happen overnight, so I just wanted to make sure no one was staying very late. Maybe if someone planned to do overtime, and I trusted them, I could ask them to keep an eye on Neal's desk for me.

There were a couple of agents still there, including Spencer and the blond probie. Cameron was near Spencer, so it occurred to me at last that he was the accountant's junior agent. I was tired and had no intentions of staying all night, so I went to go ask Spencer to do me a favor.

It was as I was passing Cameron's desk space that I stopped and did a double-take. He was writing something into a spreadsheet with an inky black pencil. A thin ring of white was near the top, but there was no eraser. I knew I'd seen it before, or pencils like it, in craft stores.

My intuition told me it wasn't just a coincidence. After all, the missing pencil wasn't the first thing that actually went missing, and Cameron had returned the first victim of property theft as soon as he realized it didn't actually belong, in that sense, to Neal.

I crossed my arms and tapped my foot. "Agent Smith," I said clearly with a stern and angry expression, lips pursed tightly to be intimidating. He jumped, dropped the pencil, and banged his knee on the inside of his desk. "Do you have a problem with my consultant?"

Spencer looked up from his desk and slid off his reading glasses. "Agent Anderson, has something happened that I should know about?" He looked between Cameron and I attentively.

Cameron chuckled. A flash of anxiety ran across his face and his eyes darted to a drawer before he made eye contact again. "Well, he's a convict. Shouldn't everyone here have a problem with him?"

My frown deepened. Spencer rubbed his forehead as if sensing a headache.

"Open that." I commanded, pointing down to the drawer he had thoughtlessly looked to.

The nerves in his posture made me happy. "Do I have to?" He asked, huffing weakly. "What for?"

Spencer was a fair tutor, but he was never one for wasting time. He was the one who leaned over to see what was going on and snapped, "Just do as she asks, Cameron. If you're not up to anything, then there shouldn't be a problem."

Caught and pinned, the probie sank his teeth into his lip and looked down into his lap. Meekly, he pulled out the drawer by the handle. I sank down to my knees in front of it and reached in, taking out files focusing on fiscal spending on a company whose audits he was supposed to be reviewing with Spencer's guidance. Underneath those was a plain, leather-bound book of canvas paper.

I took out Neal's sketchbook and looked in the recesses of the drawer. I came up with yet another missing thing – Neal's phone charger was stuffed away, wrapped up messily and held together with a purple rubber band. I cleared my throat and pointed at the pencil Cameron had been using, holding the sketchbook under one arm, the charger in hand, and expectantly waiting for him to give up the final belonging that wasn't his.

As Cameron did so, his face turning an alarming shade of red both in embarrassment and anger, I turned to Spencer and pleasantly showed him everything I'd just confiscated. "The reason Caffrey's been in a sour mood the last couple of days is because personal affects he quite enjoys having were being stolen from his desk," I explained. Spencer's look of confusion turned to shock, and he glared at Cameron furiously. The brat was going to get a harsh talking-to from his supervising agent. "I don't want to supersede your authority over your trainee, but I strongly recommend he be relegated for a while and be forced to apologize publicly to my CI. He seems to be under the impression that theft is condoned by the bureau, so I wouldn't fret too much about writing him up, either."

Spencer was glowering at his probie, quietly seething. I was glad not to be Cameron. "I fully agree, Anderson," he stated seriously.

Cameron gaped. "You can't be serious!" He raised his voice. I tapped the sketchbook with the pencil for emphasis; it was his own actions that got him where he was. He sneered at me, respect forgone as I determined disciplinary action. Not many, but some people no longer respected their senior agents when they weren't getting what they wanted. "I was just giving that crook what he deserves! He's constantly lifting things from Berrigan's desk. I saw him take Johnson's phone the other day, did you notice? Who knows what he's taken from you!"

I bit my tongue before I said something scathing and waited a second until I could control my temper. "The correct course of action, in that case, would be to inform those of us involved." I curtly reprimanded. "Not to take the law into your own hands. You are not God, and you are not a vigilante. New York punishes petty larceny with up to a thousand in fees and/or up to six months in a level-one incarceration facility. Mr. Caffrey would be well within his rights to press charges if he likes.

"And yes, Cameron, I _did_ just say that he has _rights,_ " I nodded derisively. "Caffrey's work-release states that he has the right to both defend himself from and _initiate_ litigation with the permission of whomever holds his power of attorney. That would be me. I hardly think you have the right to steal from other people if you would punish another person for it. If you had bothered to make the adult decision, you would have been told that we are all well aware that he likes to take our things. You would've also been told that it's our entertainment and that he returns our belongings as soon as we ask for them. It's hardly property theft if we assent to it," I pointed out.

By now, Cameron's face was outraged. "What kind of man feels like he has to even pretend to take things to be useful?!"

Spencer and I shared a look and we both stared down Cameron incredulously.

"You… you _do_ realize that that's exactly what you've been doing, right…?"


	5. Identified

**V. Identified**

 _Timeframe: Set between chapters twelve and thirteen of Lie a Little Better._

"So what's our game plan here?"

I glanced down at my watch. It was way too early for this. "Questioning, coffee, office," I dryly answered, already knowing that Neal wasn't going to be satisfied. Save a few mornings every now and then where he was too comfortable and didn't want to get out of bed, he was a morning person. He was up and raring for something to do, some exciting lead to pursue. I just wanted to go back to bed already.

Neal huffed. "Come on, Kenna, we haven't done anything big in weeks. This is the first time you've taken me out of the office this month!" He held his arms out pleadingly. "Give me _something_."

The idea that I owed him anything, least of all for having him work indoors, irked me – especially since I had very good reason to do so. "The last time I took you out of the office, you lied about how federal property was destroyed, kept secrets for Interpol, nearly cost us our entire case, and unintentionally aided murderers." I summarized the Chinatown case and his many fuck-ups during its duration succinctly. The footsteps behind me faltered, yet I kept going. "Not to mention that I am well within my rights merely as your handling agent to keep you behind a desk twenty-four seven if I so choose. All you're going to get is coffee. And not even that, if you keep this attitude up."

The conman fell silent as he followed behind me, sufficiently cowed. He kept trying to mend bridges and remind me why we worked together, but most of the time, he just succeeded in getting on my nerves. I had every right to be pissed at him, and I was _not_ going to tolerate him manipulating or exasperating me into forgetting that. It was happening less and less frequently as he came to figure out that he wasn't helping his own case.

Our case was a smash-and-grab from an engagement store in northern Brooklyn. A laser pointer had been used to render the security cameras useless, and according to the eyewitness, the thief had wielded a knife. The owner of the shop had texted the emergency hotline behind his back while the thief struggled to open the case. In the recount, the man wearing a ski mask had given up after realizing there was a key, and instead of frisking the owner, he just slammed his elbow down into the glass. It wasn't a very well-off store, so the move worked. The other person, who had been inside, had supposedly declined to give a statement, which automatically made him a suspect.

"No charming," I instructed Neal, leading up the porch steps to the townhouse belonging to the silent witness. "We just talk a bit and then we leave. If something seems off, that's what I have Diana and Derek for."

Neal, though undeniably upset that we still weren't getting along like normal, nodded. To his credit, he recognized that now would've been a very bad time to sulk and pout. "Got it. No charming." He reached up and took his fedora off, holding it behind his back. I eyed him. "The hat is charming!" He justified. I rolled my eyes and knocked on the door.

We waited for almost ten seconds before the lock on the inside of the door made a clicking sound. A man on the other side started to pull it open. His greying hair was thinning. He was a short, portly old guy, with a sweater vest on that looked like it belonged in a museum, and his shoes looked so old that they could've been sold in an antique shop.

"Seth Chömann?" I asked politely, holding up my badge and hoping that I pronounced his name correctly. "Special Agent McKenna Anderson, White-Collar Crime Division. Is your son home? I'd like to ask him a few questions."

The old man held onto the door with both hands, a tremble in his fingers like he had low blood sugar. "Is Walt in trouble or something?" He asked, looking over his shoulder nervously. That gave us the answer we needed already that he wasn't alone in his house, and it was a reasonable conclusion that his son, Walter, was indeed indoors.

"No, sir," I evenly assured. "But we think he may have seen something that could help us. We'd just like to ask." It was entirely possible that he was guilty, but telling that to a parent wasn't a great idea. Since we had no lead that definitely pointed in his direction, it wasn't like we were lying, either. He wasn't in trouble. _Yet._ And he may not be in the future, either.

"Yes, ma'am." Seth let go of the door and kept his hands up. He reached for the wall with one and started to turn around. I started to put my badge away in my pocket. Then the man turned back around to look at us and narrowed his eyes at Neal. "You just hold up then. Who's you? Another agent?"

Despite the fact that Neal is working for the FBI, he's not allowed to claim that he's an agent unless it's some ploy he's using to save his ass undercover. He put on his gentlemanly smile and moved his hat out from behind him, holding it up by his abdomen to introduce himself. "Neal Caffrey, art expert and authenticator. I work freelance for the bureau," he claimed. While he wasn't _technically_ wrong, he was careful to hedge around the part where the alternative to his "freelance work" was prison.

Seth's response was anything but charmed, so I suppose that, at least, was something Neal was off the hook for. He puffed himself up like an angry bird, trying and failing to seem taller and more intimidating. All he managed was to look like a huffy pigeon. His face got kind of reddish. Neal's smile fell when he saw how poorly he was being received.

"Just who in hell d'you think you are!" Seth yelled, gripping the doorframe tightly. "Comin' here to get to my son, tellin' me you're from the police! You get off my porch! Get!"

I was startled for a few seconds. The lack of a physical attack meant I had a little bit of time to regroup, but once I did, I wasn't entirely sure what to do. "Sir," I interrupted, "It's alright, he's with me, I _am_ an agent-"

"Get!" He yelled at me, grabbing the door and stepping back to slam it shut.

"Would you like to see my badge? There's a federal seal!" I offered. I didn't have the probable cause I'd need to push my way in and stop him from closing the door, so this would be so much easier if I could just convince him to cooperate.

Instead of convincing him of anything, he just slammed the door in my face.

I sighed. "So much for that approach," I grumbled. Walter Chömann was going to be harder to get to than I thought. Maybe I could figure out where he went semi-regularly and have an agent stake the place. It was a possibility that he'd talk to an agent if his dad wasn't there to screech about how we're not police. "Alright, come on," I beckoned to Neal. "Let's go."

The thief looked back at the door and reluctantly stepped away to follow me down the porch steps. He put his hat back up on his head, but without any theatrics. He looked insulted and chagrined, though he was trying to cover it by looking down and having the shadow of his fedora shade his eyes.

Neal caught up with me and synced our steps. "Kenna," he started, frowning, "I didn't do anything. Really, I don't know _what_ that was."

"You don't?" I gave him a sideways look. "Because it seems pretty obvious." As soon as the old man heard his name, he'd freaked, shut us out, and accused us of impersonating law enforcement. It wasn't hard to figure out what he'd thought. "Relax, you're not in trouble."

"No?"

"Nope," I confirmed. "Look, the bureau can either publicly clear you, or it can keep your work-release under wraps. It's most effective to do the latter – you keep your contacts that the bureau pretends we don't know about, and your face isn't associated with the bureau, which makes you ten times more efficient as an informant. A consequence of that is that some people know you're a forger and _don't_ know you're working for us." I shrugged. "It is what it is. It's not your fault, it's just a risk. I can send Derek back later."

Neal slid his hands into his pockets. He didn't hold himself as tensely after I explained, taking it at face value that I wasn't mad and he wasn't going to be getting any extra ire for what had happened. The world works out that way sometimes, and he's already paid with four years in prison for bond forgery. I think that's plenty, given the type of prison he was in and how dangerous they are. As for everything else… well, innocent until proven guilty, and nothing was ever proven.

"That's got to look bad on you, doesn't it?" He asked, looking over at me worriedly.

 _You didn't really care how it reflected on me when you lied about Mei-Lin,_ my snarky brain supplied, but I knew better than to start something again by saying it out loud. "It's pretty humiliating to be accused of aiding a criminal and to have my integrity questioned, but no, it doesn't have much of an impact. Like I said, it's a hazard of field work with a criminal informant."

He looked down at the pavement again, watching our feet pass on the sidewalk and mulling it over. "You said it's always a risk?"

I nodded. "You never know whose names someone might've heard."

"So why do you always bring _me_ out with you?" He persisted. I wanted to know why he was asking, but I didn't know if I'd get an honest answer that I felt I could believe in if I asked. I wasn't in the right frame of mind where he was concerned to trade heart-to-hearts. "Why not Diana? She's your probie. Or Derek, your partner."

"Because you whine if you're locked up in the office," I muttered.

Neal reached out and touched my elbow, loosely grabbing my arm and holding on. "Kenna, seriously. It's not part of my deal, so why?" I looked up to his face while preparing to move my arm out of his grip. I'd been steeled up to fight back against the kind, soft puppy dog eyes, but I wasn't expecting the analytic, questioning, and serious pair that I actually saw.

I bit lightly on my tongue for a moment. I wasn't entirely sure why. I usually excused it by saying it was easiest for him to authenticate and spot issues if he were on the scene. That said, anything that needed to be authenticated could be brought to him in the FBI, and spotting issues wasn't his job. I liked having him with me. I liked his company. Lately, I haven't been such a huge fan of him, but I still like to see that he's with me and he's safe.

 _Maybe it's a soulmate thing,_ I dared to admit to myself, grinding my teeth. _I want to make sure he's always safe and secure, and I know that I can protect him._ However, I couldn't tell him that, and I didn't want to say something like that out loud.

"I don't know," I shrugged, taking my arm away from his seeking hand. "Because you're nice company in the field. You're a fresh perspective." I didn't start walking again right away. It wasn't true that I _always_ took him with me. Even when we were at our best, I still take my FBI partners out with me. Diana more often than Derek, because she's still in training and I can't stop attending to that duty. It's not hard to see that I have a clear preference for Neal than many other people in my office. "Because… because you like to come into the field, where it's more engaging and familiar, and I want you engaged, because the more engaged you are, the more committed you're likely to become."

His serious expression stayed put, and the furrow of his brows deepened. "Committed," he repeated after me, not entirely pleased. He wasn't upset with me, but he didn't like the answer, either, and I could take a guess at why. "Me, committed to the FBI?"

I shook my head. Neal wasn't committed to the FBI, and I wasn't deluding myself by thinking that would happen. For as long as Moreau was out there tempting him, and as long as Neal's best friend still had both feet fully immersed in crime I turned my cheek to, he would never be fully on the side of law enforcement. If I were him, I don't think I'd be able to regardless of personal connections, since I'd have spent four years in prison.

"I know better than that," I remarked. Neal's expression lighted and his jaw, which had been tense, relaxed slightly. "No, I mean… you're not a bad person, Neal, and sometimes you do bad things – like lying to me for Interpol," I used as an example. It was incredibly relevant now, especially, because that wasn't just a test of his commitments, but also of his loyalties. "But I think you're a genuinely kind person, and if I get one thing out of this work-release, I'd like for it to be that you have those aspects of yourself nurtured. These cases – some of them, at least – involve helping people who need help, and when I take you into the field, you see them, you connect, you empathize. And once they're _real_ people, real to you, you commit, and that fosters the parts of you that care."

Through my words, Neal had listened intently with his head tilted slightly, looking down the short distance to my face attentively. His tongue darted out swiftly to lick his lips and he nodded slowly. "I think I understand that. Thank you. For what it's worth," he took my elbow again. "I like to think I'm kind, too, and it's important to me that you can see it, even with what's between and behind us."

I felt a little embarrassed to have bared myself like that, but my focus had been baring my thoughts on Neal, not on my own emotions, so it wasn't as bad. Meanwhile, in far fewer words, he had returned the favor, opening up a bit about how he saw himself and how he thought about our relationship.

The things that were between us were mostly contextual. Him, the conman, and me, the cop. Those that were behind us – the things he _wanted_ to put behind us – were things like the failed test of his commitment to _me_ , our partnership, our friendship, and our trust in each other a month prior.

I slowly nodded. "Behind?" I repeated.

He nodded after me, convinced, and gave my elbow a gentle, promising squeeze. "Behind. I'm committed. You're right – I do care. You just forgot one thing: the people we help aren't the only ones I care _about._ "

"Are you ready to prove that commitment again?" I asked, taking my elbow away to thoughtfully cross my arms. "I'm going out on limbs for you, and putting a lot of faith in your words right now. I know a lot of people have done that, but-"

"But you're not just people," he interrupted me, giving me a small smile. "I'm loyal to my commitments. This is a branch that won't break."


	6. Loyalty

**VI. Loyalty**

 _Timeframe: Set between chapters fourteen and fifteen of Lie a Little Better._

Although I was still haunted by paranoia over bugs in my telephones, and kept remembering Peter Burke's well-intended warning, it was hard to catch me in a particularly sour mood for the first couple of weeks following Neal's exoneration from the _Le Joyau_ heist. I was just so proud – of myself, for beating Fowler; of Neal, for being innocent and for being so brave and clever; of Neal and myself as a team, for trusting each other; of Katie, for staying strong through the alarming events; of Derek and Diana, for trusting my judgment and being loyal to their friend; of Mozzie, even, for being so resourceful and helpful, while still looking out for Neal's best interests.

When OPR left, it was like the white-collar team had beaten the odds. OPR had a reputation for having sticks up their asses. Even though the majority of agents in my division hadn't doubted Neal's guilt for a second, they still felt unified by their department being right while OPR was wrong. Sometimes it annoyed me, but I figured that if their good moods kept them from ragging on Neal about the diamond, then it wasn't a terrible exchange.

It was time for us to rebuild. Neal and I both needed it. I stayed over a little more often – not because I was particularly lonely, but because the first time I had, Neal woke up in a cold sweat after dreaming of prison. The reminder of how easily he could be booted back – and how much more dangerous it was now that he'd turned for the feds – scared him more than he'd ever admit. I stayed with him more so that he'd have someone in case he needed some extra support.

To take care of Katie, I disconnected the landlines. Learning about the bug had freaked her out pretty badly, so I just fixed it so we didn't use them. I would turn them back on eventually, but for now, it was helping her sleep at night. So were the additional alarm systems that I had installed. We'd had a pretty good kind before, but I updated them with a kind that required a passcode. Mozzie could probably crack it, but I doubted Fowler or his goons could.

No one was really there to take care of me, but it was something I'd brought onto myself. I didn't ask for help. I wasn't sure what anyone could do. Although I felt safe in Neal's arms, the comfort he brought me was company, not an assurance of protection. Actually feeling protected was something I hadn't had the luxury of in a long time. Since I was at least able to keep myself together, I decided that I was doing well enough.

So what if parts of my life suck? I can't tell my soulmate he's my soulmate, I have to look over my shoulder in case Fowler tries to take away my partner again, and I have PTSD. I've been dealing with two of those things for months, one of them for even longer. Most of my life was feeling pretty good. I'd won. I'd protected my best friend. I'd protected my sister. I have a soulmate that I can be proud of, and I know that my soulmate is proud of me. Given how hard I've worked to achieve that, it feels pretty great.

I went down to the kitchenette to get some coffee and stretch my legs. I probably used that small little room more than I used my actual kitchen at home. I stopped outside to check and see if I had any emails on my phone, and while I scrolled through push notifications, I unintentionally eavesdropped on the conversation inside.

"I just can't believe she still bosses him around like she does." A woman's voice scoffed. She sounded young and a bit imperious, and I didn't recognize her from her sound. There were a few agents outside of my team I interacted with fairly often, and there were some I knew decently, but the WCCD is a large division and I don't personally make friends with everyone. "Just sticking her hand on his back and driving him wherever she wants. He's a _person."_

"Yeah, but he's a person who's been convicted for bond forgery," a young man who sounded almost the same age replied. His tone was more uncertain. It clicked in my mind that they were discussing Neal – who else? – and it was a short jump back to myself. "She kinda has to boss him around, doesn't she?"

"Not if she's gonna go to all that effort to prove he's innocent." The woman in the kitchenette scoffed. "I think she just did it to save face. It'd be pretty embarrassing if her CI stole a diamond."

"I mean, yeah," her colleague answered slowly. "But she's… she's the boss. It's what she does."

The girl huffed. "Well, if she wants to boss _me_ around, I'm not gonna listen. I'm not going to let myself be pushed around by some bitch who can't even show a little loyalty to her partner."

I glared at the door. She had no idea what she was talking about. _Loyalty?_ She doesn't know the half of the relationship Neal and I share and she sure as fuck has no right to be commenting on it, much less the details of a case she has no business sticking her nose in. The boy's right, I _am_ the boss, and either she'll do as she's told or she'll be facing consequences for insubordination.

Before I could go inside to make my coffee and break up their gossip, a hand gently touched my elbow and stopped me. I wasn't too surprised that it was Neal. My shoulders fell and the tension drained like he had twisted the cap, and I just frowned up at him. I was loyal to him. He knew that. Wasn't his opinion the only one that mattered on this?

"Don't," he said softly. "They're not worth it." Neal nodded slightly to the door and rolled his eyes. "What are they, kids?" I hummed quietly and nodded. They probably were younger – fresh blood, maybe, or students working as part of their degree program. Neal shook his head and moved his hand off my arm. "I'll take care of it." His face turned into a slow, handsome, reassuring smile. "You're not the only one who's got some loyalty to prove."

I only hesitated for a second before I nodded my assent. My character was in question, but Neal wanted to return the favor I'd done for him over and over by defending his integrity. I saw no reason to stop him – not when so many of the bumps in our relationship had been caused by suspicions of disloyalty or insincerity.

The artist's smile had widened when I gave him the go ahead and he showed off his perfectly straight and white teeth. If we hadn't been in the middle of the FBI, I think he might've leaned in and given me a supportive kiss on the cheek. He's a little old fashioned like that, but I enjoy it (though I'd rather handcuff myself to Ruiz for a day than admit it). Neal held up his empty coffee mug to me in a sort of salute and took it into the kitchenette to make himself a refill.

Right away, the chatter between the two nosy brats fell quiet. They recognized Neal, of course; no one with any experience gossiping does the aforementioned activity in front of one of its subjects. Neal hummed, his voice smooth like silk, and turned on the coffeemaker.

"You know," Neal started genially, startling both of them. "There's a lot of things you can learn from working here." He paused for just a couple of seconds, like he was posturing himself comfortably. "Where are you studying from?"

Something about them must've given away that one of my guesses was right, and that they were students. "Um… FDU. It's over in Jersey," the boy said, already sounding humbled and awkward. "Legal studies major."

The girl huffed and didn't answer. I suppose that said what she thought about Neal pretty clearly. No matter what she'd said about me, she didn't have much respect for the conman, either.

"Well, let me give you a tip for when you're getting those degrees." Neal's words were friendly and helpful, but his tone became cooler so gradually that I didn't even notice it happening until it just suddenly _had,_ and I was struck by the difference. He truly was a master of interactions. "You're never going to stop learning. You'll always have to redefine things. Especially in legal studies," he added. "All the technicalities, loopholes, the changes as new laws are adopted and new sanctions are put in place. Believe me, I'd know.

"So right here is a good look at how you're going to learn to redefine things you thought you knew. Like loyalty." That felt very pointed. He paused again, and I envisioned that he was giving a long, meaningful look at them both. "University's nice, from what I hear, but it's not really the same as being out in the world. Things are a lot messier and complicated out here. Maybe your idea of loyalty is always sticking by your friends, no matter what. When you grow up, you learn that loyalty isn't about insisting your friends are right. It's about helping them see when they're wrong, and then helping them to better themselves."

I smiled softly and looked down at my mug. The anger I'd felt for those idiots was melting away. Neal really was learning a few things from his experiences with me, with the bureau, with a halfway "normal" life. It made me feel optimistic that his views were evolving into perspectives more informed by both sides of the story. Maybe before he'd next plan a con, he'd consider more than just what he stood to gain.

Neither of the students had a really quick answer to that. I hadn't expected Neal to go in and verbally rip their throats out, but I also hadn't expected him to be super friendly, either, so striking somewhere in the middle was the only option left, but the _way_ he went about it was so impactful that it left even me feeling surprised and modest. I couldn't have worded it better if I had tried. Even the whiny little princess actually gave thought to what he said and seemed to realize that they were being cowed for their assumptions and judgments.

"Now, in terms of the agents here, some of them are better at that than others. Some of them wouldn't like to be loyal at all. They would just turn their backs once they think someone has done something bad. Others actually remain true to the promises they've made, the commitments they've created, and the relationships that they've nurtured. What you think of as betrayal was being a loyal friend in a difficult situation. Agent Anderson acknowledged that the situation was bad, but she didn't look the other way. She stayed. She put herself in the center so that she could make sure her team had all the support they needed. That's _one_ definition of loyalty, at least."

"Oh, yeah, she was real supportive," the snooty girl sneered. "So supportive that she let you be put in jail. How can you be alright with that?"

"Because she may have put me in jail," Neal acknowledged. I _had_ been the one who arrested him – it was a means to an end, and he knew that now, no matter how betrayed he had felt at the time. "But she's also the one who got me out."


End file.
